The Initiative of God |
by David A. DePra |
| There are many facets of the grace of God. But one of the |
| most important is the INITIATIVE of God. Because God is the |
| God of all grace, He does not sit back and wait for us to find our |
| way to Him. He does not leave things to us. HE takes the |
| initiave to seek US. He comes down and finds us; takes the |
| initiative in our lives. |
| God takes the initiative, not only with regards to salvation, but |
| with regards to everything else in our lives. The spiritually poor |
| or bankrupt realize this. They know they don't have what they |
| need, and have no way of getting it -- in everything. They are |
| reliant upon the Truth that God Himself will take the initiative to |
| provide them with what they need to walk with Jesus Christ. |
Back to the Beginning |
| The Bible is filled with illustrations of the Truth of God's |
| initiating grace. But the best one is the first one. We see this |
| Truth pictured in God's dealing with Adam and his sin. |
| Let's go back to the creation story. After God restored the |
| heavens and the earth, He created Adam and put him in a |
| garden. God planted the tree of life, and the tree of the |
| knowledge of good and evil. Then He gave Adam the |
| instructions he needed for obedience. He said, |
| "Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely. But of the tree |
| of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it. For |
| in the day you eat thereof you shall surely die." (Gen. 2:16-17) |
| Of course, Adam sinned. The serpent first beguiled Eve. |
| Then Adam -- with the full knowledge of what he was doing |
| -- went ahead and disobeyed. Immediately, Adam died. The |
| entire human race, indeed, all the earth, was plunged into the |
| realm of death and darkness. |
| "Surely," we might think, "God had done everything He could |
| do for Adam. He had given him everything, including |
| instructions as to how to obey and avoid death. So when Adam |
| sinned, God had every right to withdraw Himself from Adam. It is |
| only right that God left it up to Adam to forsake his sin and |
| reconcile himself back to his Creator." |
| That pretty well sums up the picture most of us have of God. |
| We deem Him withdrawn from us -- even angry -- because of |
| our imperfections. And we think it is our responsibility to cut |
| through all of God's disdain for us, and to somehow work our |
| way back into His favor. So we do "good works" and try to "have |
| faith," hoping to achieve those results. |
| But wait. Is that the picture of God revealed in Genesis? Ask: |
| After Adam sinned, who withdrew from whom? Did Adam hide |
| from God, or did God hide from Adam? This is an important |
| question. Remember: We are talking here about the "original |
| sin" of mankind. We are examining the worst sin of all. How God |
| reacted towards Adam's sin is surely of great importance and |
| revelation. It tells us much about how He reacts towards us. |
| You probably already know what happened. Adam hid from |
| God among the trees of the garden. (Gen. 3:8) God's reaction to |
| Adam's sin, however, was to come seeking Adam out. (3:9) In |
| this, God is showing us where sin has brought the relationship |
| between man and Himself: Adam, and all of us, are hiding from |
| God. But God is seeking us out and initiating contact, offering |
| redemption. What a perfect picture of our helplessness and of |
| God's grace! |
| Can I possibly grasp the significance of this Truth? It means |
| that it is absolutely impossible that God's reaction towards sin |
| today is anger, wrath, condemnation, and withdrawal. Why? |
| Because if God reacted in those ways, He would have never |
| sought out Adam after the worst sin of all. But the fact that God |
| initiated contact with Adam, and continues to do so with us |
| today, shows that His attitude towards us always was, always is, |
| and always will be, love. Love initiates deliverance and |
| redemption. Love seeks out the sinner. |
The Initiative of God |
| Grace means God takes the initiative to seek us out, rather |
| than leave it up to us to find Him. It means that God takes the |
| initiative to give us what we have no way of getting. That's why |
| grace is called a "free gift." His gift is entirely dependent upon |
| HIS love and HIS initiative. It has nothing to do with US. |
| The scriptures are clear on this Truth. They show that unless |
| God initiates by His grace, we cannot so much as believe. |
| You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you. (John 15:16) |
| No man can come to Me except the Father who sent Me draw |
| Him. (John 6:44) |
| But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He |
| loved us, even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us |
| together with Christ, (by grace you are saved), and has raised us |
| up together, and made us to sit together in heavenly places in |
| Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:4-6) |
| These scriptures nicely illustrate that in ourselves we have no |
| power to initiate contact with God. We cannot in any way turn to |
| Christ by our own initiative. God must initiate or we will be lost |
| forever. |
| Some of us don't quite grasp this Truth. We suppose that to |
| receive Christ, we have to at least show God we have an interest |
| in Him. We think we must "at least believe," or "try to obey." |
| Then, we suppose, God will see our faith and desire for Him and |
| will respond by saving us. |
| But ask: From where am I going to get this faith? Remember: |
| I'm dead. I have no life in me; no ability to respond to God. |
| How then am I going to generate the faith that will save me? |
| Obviously, I cannot. A spiritually dead human being has no |
| capacity to generate faith or to initiate contact with God. I am |
| dead, and will remain dead, until God chooses to initiate contact |
| and put His life in me. |
| But how about the verses which seem to say our faith does |
| save us? -- like this commonly quoted one from Romans: |
| The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that is, |
| the word of faith which we preach. That if thou shalt confess with |
| thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thy heart that God |
| raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart |
| man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession |
| is made unto salvation. (Rom. 10:8-10) |
| This verse says that "if" we confess with our mouth and |
| believe in our heart we shall be saved." But notice what else it |
| says: The word is nigh thee, even in your mouth and heart. |
| What word? "The word of faith which we preach." In other words, |
| in order for me to have a "word of faith" to confess with my |
| mouth, and to believe with my heart, it must first be put there by |
| the Holy Spirit. I cannot put it there myself. Jesus is the Author |
| and Finisher of my faith. I am not. |
| This does not mean we have no choice in the matter. It |
| simply means that God must initiate our salvation solely by His |
| grace. He must put into us His gift. But once we see the Truth |
| about what He has done, we must choose what we are going to |
| do about it: Believe and surrender, or harden our hearts. |
Faith |
| If God were not love, there would be nothing in Him which |
| would motivate Him to take the initiative to seek us out, let alone |
| sacrifice His own Son on our behalf. In that case, it would be up |
| to us to seek Him out. And for six thousand years human beings |
| have been trying to do just that. We have been trying to "find |
| God." The general result is all around us: "Religion." There isn't |
| much of God in any of it. |
| Christians especially want to "find God." We want to |
| experience Him on a personal and individual basis. But |
| unfortunately, much of organized Christianity has also missed |
| the boat. It has, to some degree, become a religion -- yes, with |
| many true doctrines, and with many correct teachings -- but |
| with no life in it. |
| Could it be that, as a whole, the Body of Christ has not |
| believed the simple Truth of the gospel of grace? No, I don't |
| mean the DOCTRINE of grace. Anyone can give assent to that. I |
| mean the REALITY of grace. If I truly believe the gospel -- the |
| way the Bible means the term -- it will alter my life. It will not be |
| a trouble-free life. But it will be a life which will grow in it's |
| witness to the greatness of God. |
| So where does a person begin? How do I find God? How do |
| I actually begin living in that kind of living Christianity? |
| The answer is the most simple thing imaginable: The way I |
| "find God" is by believing He has already found me. |
| That is faith. Man has no ability to find God. I cannot reach |
| up to heaven -- not by my works, by my prayers, or by my own |
| righteousness. God has to reach down to me. Thankfully, in |
| Jesus Christ, He already has. |
| The sobering fact is, unless God takes the initiative in our lives, |
| we have no hope. We have no hope for salvation, and we have |
| no hope for freedom after salvation. We are left to ourselves. It |
| is therefore a fact that knowing this Truth about the initiative of |
| God is fundamental to our faith, and to our ability to walk in that |
| faith as Christians. |
| There is no sin so deep and terrible that it can convince God |
| to sit back and let us die. The Lamb has been slain from the |
| foundation of the world. The God of all grace is invading, seeking, |
| and evermore probing into the hearts and lives of men and |
| women, in order to bring them out of this old creation into the new. |
| He is relentless in doing so, for He is the Initiating God. He does |
| for us what we are completely incapable of doing for ourselves.* |